Cold Bones
by Book 'em Again
Summary: Amidst the busy life of a Five-O Detective, Danny Williams finds himself unable to get a cold case out of his mind. Can he put some flesh on a pile of old bones or will he have to come to terms with the fact that some cases are never closed? Written for the Five-O Anniversary Challenge.


_"But I found out that bones with flesh are more interesting than bones without."_

James MacArthur

* * *

_Spring '65_

A rare moment of peace and quiet filled the Five-O offices. The paperwork was finished and there were no pressing tasks to be accomplished. Yet, the newest member of the Five-O team was oblivious to the relaxation that was being enjoyed by his co-workers. Instead, Detective Dan Williams was engrossed in a case file that he had spread out all over his desk.

Danny eagerly read the reports and familiarized himself with the evidence – even though it was, unfortunately, very thin. This was a case that had long since gone cold. But while the case of the Kaneana Cave Bones, as the press had dubbed them, was good and cold, the mystery of how this particular Jane Doe had died had haunted the young detective for the past eleven years.

After all, it was hard to forget a body that you discovered.

* * *

_Summer '54_

"Lew! Danny! Wait up!"

Danny stopped and shot an exasperated glance at his best friend, Lew Morgan. He hoped that bringing Marjorie along on their trip would not turn out to be a mistake. Now, he liked Marjorie. She was a good friend. In fact, Lew, Marjorie, and Danny had been inseparable for years. But who brought a girl along for a spelunking adventure? What was Lew thinking? Danny had only told his mother that they were going on a picnic at the cave, not that he was planning on doing some exploration of his own. Unfortunately, Lew had a soft spot where Marjorie was concerned. He was sweet on her though he was taking his good ole time in admitting it.

When Marjorie caught up, she shoved the picnic basket into Danny's arms. "If you're going to speed on ahead, you can carry the food."

Danny bit his lip and accepted the added burden even though he was already carrying a small backpack with their flashlights and other tools inside. He knew better than to argue with her when she was in a mood. Plus, from the way that her eyes were flashing, he suspected that Lew must have told her about his reservations about bringing her along for this adventure. _Great, whatever happened to covering each other's back?_

Lew led the way as they entered the mouth of the Kaneana Cave. The sunshine from outside provided just enough light for them to see by, without ruining the effect of what was a rather creepy looking cavern.

When they reached the main chamber, Lew said, "So this is the lair of the Shark Man."

"Shark Man?" Marge asked.

"The Hawaiians call him Nanaue," Danny clarified.

Enjoying the moment, Lew stepped closer to Marge and continued the story. "The Shark Man was a shape-shifter. He would turn into a human to find his prey and then lure them into this cave, to this very room." Marge leaned into Lew and grabbed his hand as he came to the climax of his spooky tale. "Then he would eat them for dinner!"

Lew was enjoying himself way too much. So Danny had to step in; his friend deserved it for squealing on him. "Don't worry, Marge, the Hawaiians killed him a long time ago. They chopped him into lots of little pieces."

Lew shot him a dirty look as Marge pulled away. However, Danny wasn't willing to stop without having some fun of his own. He grinned as he sat down on the cave floor and opened up the picnic basket. "And now, we're going to eat lunch where humans were once eaten."

"That's disgusting!" Marge declared.

Danny rolled his eyes. Why couldn't she see how cool this was?

Pulling out a ham sandwich, Danny began to eat. Marge's reluctance didn't last long as she knew all too well that if she didn't grab her share, the two teenage boys would quickly devour all the food.

They talked for a while about different things, hearing about friends they hadn't seen since school had let out for the summer.

Danny dug a handful of flashlights out of his pack. "Who's ready to go exploring?"

"Where?"

"You see those holes along the bottom of the walls? They lead to more of the cave. This cave is huge and no one has ever mapped it all."

"Sounds fun," Marge said.

"You're going to get dirty."

Marge huffed. "Someone has to make sure you two jokers don't get lost in these tunnels."

Then to prove her point, she grabbed a flashlight, walked over to the closest tunnel and crawled through on her stomach.

Lew followed, leaving Danny to bring up the rear. As he prepared to squeeze through, Danny admitted that he was lucky that he had a small frame, something he rarely did. Mostly, he envied his classmates with muscles even though his mother told him that he wasn't done growing yet. That didn't do him any good, because what girls would look twice at a scrawny teen?

They crawled for a while until they reached the next cavern where they all could stand up. Danny carefully marked the opening they had come out of with a piece of chalk. He had no intentions of getting lost.

They continued like this through several tunnels. Then they agreed that they would continue on to one more cavern before turning back. This time Danny was in the lead, and the space was a tight fit. And unfortunately, when he shone his light on ahead, it looked like this passage was blocked. Curious, he crawled closer. It wasn't rock. No, it was under the dirt and it was white. And there was more…

Suddenly realizing what he was seeing, Danny yelped.

"What is it?" Marge asked.

Excited, Lew added, "What did you find?"

Ashamed of his fear, Danny tried to adopt a brave tone as he said, "I think I just found the remains of one of Shark Man's victims."

* * *

_Present_

The difference between the report and his memories were stark. The facts were all the same, it was just that the report made the whole experience feel as if it had unfolded in a neat and orderly fashion. Reality had been very different. The challenge of finding officers small enough to fit through all the openings and the pure frustration of the lab boys in trying to get the bones out while preserving the evidence had, at times, approached full-blown chaos.

Nor did the report mention that it took Danny three separate phone calls and a lot of pleading before he finally managed to get a hold of a detective who was willing to listen. Though he did have to admit that a teenager calling in reports of a skeleton in the Kaneana Cave did sound like a prank.

Afterwards, he had made the news, and when his mother had found out, she hadn't known whether to be proud or angry. But the weeks passed and the news noted that there had been no further developments in the case and that the identity of the Kaneana Cave Bones would forever remain a mystery.

At the time, Danny had been disappointed. It was the job of the police to solve murders. How could they have they let this one go unsolved? But looking through the files, he now saw that Detectives Kainoa and Irons had worked very hard to find out who the victim was with bones being the only shred of evidence they had.

"You're working!" a voice cried out in amazement.

Danny looked up from his desk at his bewildered friend. "Yes, Kono. Work is typically something that people do when they are at work."

"Look, bruddah, let me give ya a piece of advice. We don't get many slow days around dese parts. Enjoy dem. I wouldn't want ya to burn out in your first couple months."

Kono looked determined that he relax, so Danny carefully returned all the notes to the file and locked them in his desk. Then they joked around with Chin until Steve told them that they could leave. Less than an hour later, the two friends were hitting the waves; the bones and the file were long forgotten.

* * *

Kono had been right about one thing. Life as a Five-O detective was rarely a dull one. McGarrett had seemingly endless ways of keeping the three men under his charge busy solving cases or gathering evidence on local crime lords. It was weeks before Danny had enough free time to take another look at the cold case file in his desk.

This time he checked to make sure that Kono was busy with some other task before bringing out the file. Flipping to the coroner's report, Danny didn't recognize the name of the medical examiner, but there was no doubt from his careful notes that the man had done his job well.

The ME estimated, due to the rate of decomposition, that the bones were between thirty and forty years old and belonged to a young woman. The hole in her skull left no doubt that she was murdered. However, the only other item of note that would help in identifying the victim was that the right humerus showed signs of a childhood break.

Detectives Kainoa and Irons had combed the missing person reports, but records from that time period were spotty. The news shared some of the information, but no one who came forward was looking for a missing female who had once broken her arm.

The more Danny read, the more discouraged he became. What hope did he have to solve a murder that could be over fifty years old?

"Danno."

Danny looked up and saw McGarrett standing in the doorway of his cubicle. "Yes, Steve?"

"I need you to run over to the courthouse and pick up a warrant from Judge Freeman."

Closing the file, the young detective rose from his seat. "Are we finally moving in on Johnny Smith?"

Steve grinned and Danny took that as a yes as he exited the office at a brisk walk. It didn't take long for him to walk across the street, find the judge and return with a warrant in hand.

But when he walked back into the office, Danny spotted Steve seated in a most unusual spot. The Head of Five-O was seated behind his newest detective's desk, reading the file that Danny had left open on top of it.

Danny's heart stopped. He hadn't done anything wrong by requesting that file, but it was a little embarrassing to admit that he was having trouble letting this case go. Plus, what would Steve think about him spending his time reading up on an old cold case when there were many more recent cases on which he could be focusing? There was only one way to find out. "Steve, I've got the warrant."

Steve set down the file and grabbed his jacket. "Let's go."

For a moment, Danny dared hope that his boss was going to let him off the hook, but the silence only lasted until they had gotten into Steve's car.

"I've never seen that case file you left on your desk."

"Well, it is a little before your time," Danny joked lightly.

"Body discovered eleven years ago, the girl murdered some forty years prior to that, scant evidence. Would you even be looking at the file if you hadn't been the one who had discovered the body?"

"So we should let this case stay cold?" Danny challenged. "Never give her family closure?"

"Danno, the girl was never identified."

"All the more reason to keep investigating."

Steve sighed. "Again, would you even be looking at that file if you hadn't discovered the body?"

Unwilling to admit the truth, Danny evaded the question. "Someone has to care."

"There are dozens of open cases in the archives that have gone cold. Many with more evidence to go on. But there is only one file on your desk."

Steve was persistent. It was part of what made him such a good detective, but it was not fun to be on the receiving end of his questions. So giving in, Danny said, "I guess I feel responsible. I found those bones. Now that I'm a detective, I should do what I can to discover who she is and why she was murdered."

"I don't want you to think that it's wrong to investigate a cold case. It's not, but you need a reason to open it back up again. New evidence or a witness who comes forward."

"Doesn't our Jane Doe's story deserve to be told?"

"Bones alone aren't enough to tell a story."

Danny paused as he considered the point. "I thought it was our job to help bones speak."

"It is," Steve admitted. "But these bones need some flesh and blood or they will never say a word. We aren't miracle-workers, Danno. We need evidence in order to close a case."

Danny grew quiet. He understood what Steve was trying to teach him. He didn't like it, but he understood. He would have to let this case go.

* * *

A month passed and Danny would have liked to admit that he no longer dwelt on the mystery of the Kaneana Cave Bones. But that would be a lie. He couldn't forget those bones. He doubted that he ever would. He had returned the file and not looked at it once since his conversation with Steve. But he didn't need the file. The facts and the memories were burned into his brain; he would never be able to forget them. But he had learned not to let it bother him so much. To throw his energy and his time into cases that had a chance of being solved.

Besides, Danny had to admit there was a certain thrill from closing in on a suspect and he didn't intend to lose the one he currently had in his sights. So when the car he was chasing barely slowed down as it went into a sharp turn, he whipped his car around the bend to try to close the gap.

"Easy, Danny," Chin gasped as he braced himself against the dashboard. "You're spending too much time with Steve."

Danny grinned. "He is my mentor."

"Just know that not all of his habits are good ones."

Danny ignored his colleague's continued murmurings as he spotted his opportunity to pull up beside the sedan. The suspect overcorrected as he tried to avoid Danny and ended up in a skid. When the sedan finally came to a halt, Danny and Chin were already out of their own vehicle and sprinting toward their suspect, who had wasted no time in running for the nearby cliffs.

The suspect was fast but Danny was faster. He tackled the man and brought him crashing down upon the rocks. The man tried to sit up, but Danny pressed down firmly on his back as he grabbed the flailing arms to cuff. "Choi Hun, you're under arrest for murder and obstruction of justice."

The young man finally conceded his fight as Danny read him his rights and handed him off to Chin.

Glad that Choi was finally caught, Danny watched the ocean waves crashing against the cliffs while he caught his breath. The sun was beginning to set and the sight was a beautiful one. This was the less developed side of Oahu and he always appreciated its natural beauty.

When Chin announced that Choi was secured in the car, Danny took one last quick glance of the shoreline. But before he turned away, a solitary, hunched over figure caught his eye. What was an old woman doing alone on these cliffs? Fearful that she might be a jumper, he signaled to Chin that he was going to check her out.

However, as Danny drew closer to the woman, he recognized the ground on which he was walking. He hadn't come to this part of Oahu in years, but knew that this path led to the area above the Kaneana Cave. Suddenly, a reason for the woman's presence appeared in his mind. This cave was sacred to the Hawaiian people and religious rituals were still performed inside.

Danny hesitated; the last thing he wanted to do would be to intrude if that was the case. However, just as he convinced himself that he should leave, the woman turned and looked at him.

She wasn't Hawaiian.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Danny said as he flashed his badge. "I saw that you were alone up here and I wanted to make sure that you were alright."

Danny noticed tears on the wrinkled face that studied him. "Forgive me, officer. I'm just a fool who doesn't know when to give up on an old dream."

He never liked seeing people in pain, and even though he didn't think she appeared suicidal, he decided to lend a friendly ear. "I don't have anywhere I have to be, if you would like to talk about it." Chin would understand. At least Danny hoped he would.

The woman grew silent and simply looked out over the ocean. When she finally spoke, it was with a soft voice that spoke of pain and memories not used to being shared.

"I was supposed to meet someone at this spot many years ago. She never came. But still I return year after year, hoping that she will return to me."

"Who?"

"My daughter. Elizabeth Ethel Hendricks."

"And your name?"

"Ruth Hilliard."

"Has been a while since you've seen your daughter?"

"Forty-eight years."

Danny was floored. Having lost his father as a child and his mother as a teen, he couldn't imagine why anyone would stay away for so long. The pain was etched in Ruth's face. Her daughter's actions had left scars. He wondered if Elizabeth knew.

Ruth continued her story. "She married too young. But what choice did we have? She was pregnant and he was the father. She was just a baby. Seventeen years old. Too young to know what love is."

The story was beginning to make sense. He had seen friends from school rush into weddings in order to hide pregnancies while everyone else pretended that they couldn't count. Some of them worked, some of them didn't. He suspected that this was one that didn't.

"She resented you for pushing her into marriage," Danny stated.

"Yes. My husband made it clear that either she marry Henry or she would no longer be welcome in our home. I tried to tell her that marriage would be best for the baby. But after the marriage, she wasn't happy. They weren't a good match. She became sullen and withdrawn. They didn't have any money. Then Henry came home one day and announced that he intended to enlist and that he and Elizabeth would move to the mainland."

Ruth turned her head and let her eyes met his. "A mother knows. I could tell my daughter was having second thoughts. She didn't want to leave Hawaii and Henry hadn't consulted her about the move. I don't think that he was cruel to her, but I do think he blamed her a little for their state."

The sunset became a brilliant orange as she spoke. The beauty seemed at such odds with the tragedy being recounted.

"I told Elizabeth that if she didn't want to leave that I would help. I'd find her a place to stay and I would help her with the baby. I couldn't bring her home because of my husband, so I told her to meet me here at sunset the day before they were to leave. She never showed."

"I'm sorry."

"I waited and waited for a letter, a phone call…something to let me know that she was well. But nothing. No contact. It was like she suddenly didn't exist anymore. I never even found out if my grandchild was a boy or a girl."

The tale was heart-breaking. He could feel the fear that Elizabeth must have felt on finding out that she was pregnant. The resentment towards her parents for being forced into a loveless marriage. He suspected that Elizabeth had been unwilling to trust the person who had earlier betrayed her.

But what if she had?

What if forty-eight years ago, Elizabeth decided to meet her mother and mend a strained relationship? How different the lives of mother, daughter and child could have been!

"It is foolish," Ruth admitted, "but I never lost hope that one day my baby would come back to me."

Forty-eight years without a word from her daughter. How terrible. Then suddenly, Danny froze. It couldn't be.

_The bones of the young woman were estimated to be thirty to forty years old when they were discovered eleven years ago._

It fit. The timeline fit. And the story explained why she was never reported missing. It made sense. Too much sense. If Elizabeth had decided to disobey her father and leave her marriage, could that decision have driven one of the men in her life to commit murder?

"Young man. Officer, are you still listening to me? You must find the ramblings of an old woman boring." Ruth sounded annoyed. He must have missed something she had said while he was thinking.

"No," Danny said. "I was just thinking. Mrs. Hillliard, did your daughter break any bones as a child?"

"Excuse me?"

"Please, humor me."

Ruth was looking at him askance as she answered, "Yes."

"Which bone?"

"I don't understand how this is relevant."

"I'll explain in a moment," Danny pleaded. "Just answer the question, please."

He had to know. He had to know if the bones were Elizabeth's.

"Her right arm. She fell while climbing some rocks."

"Her forearm or her shoulder?" Danny pressed as he pointed to the areas on his own arm.

"Here." Ruth pointed to a spot on her right humerus.

Danny couldn't believe it. The Kaneana Cave Bones finally had flesh. But as he looked at the concerned face of the elderly woman, he realized that he was about to take this mother's pain of an unfilled dream of reunion and tell her about the nightmare that had taken place.

But she deserved to know. And he could hope that in knowing, she would find peace.

"Ma'am, I am so sorry. But I think that your daughter did try to meet with you all those years ago."

"What are you talking about? How could you know what happened to my daughter?"

This was harder than he expected. But he had to tell his story. "Eleven years ago, a skeleton of a young woman was discovered in the cave below. It was determined that she had been murdered over thirty years before."

"Murdered!" Ruth gasped. "What makes you think this skeleton is my daughter?"

"Because the right forearm showed signs of an old break that had healed over."

Ruth wavered and Danny reached out to steady her. "My baby…dead…murdered…Who would do this?"

"I don't know, ma'am. But if you come with me to the Five-O offices, we will do our best to find out."

* * *

Danny threw down his notes in frustration. Another dead end.

He had come so close. He had found the flesh and blood needed to make this case live again. Finding out Elizabeth's name had only intensified his desire to solve this case. She deserved justice

However, he didn't let his determination cloud his judgment. He had triple-checked Ruth's story to gain more evidence that the bones were Elizabeth's. Plus, Steve had interrogated Ruth to make sure that her story was the one she told him and not that of a mother with a guilty conscience returning to the scene of the crime.

And after several days of investigation, the facts had supported the earlier conclusion. The bones belonged to one Elizabeth Ethel Hendricks. But identifying the victim had only provided them with half the story. They knew who she was and how she had died, but the case couldn't be closed until they identified her murderer.

Danny had combed through Elizabeth's life and only two suspects appeared to have motive and opportunity: the husband and the father. Both men were of a small enough size that navigating the cave would have been possible. Both men had minor run-ins with the law that suggested they had a temper. Both men were viable suspects. The problem was that both men were very dead.

Henry Hendricks had traveled to the mainland as he planned and joined the army. Danny hadn't failed to notice that the military paperwork noted no spouse or child to send survivor benefits. While that was suspicious, that didn't mean he was the killer. He could have believed that his wife had left him, and became determined to start his life anew on the mainland. He finished basic training and was shipped off to France where he had died in the trenches.

James Hilliard was a successful small business owner and, when he discovered that his daughter was pregnant, he had moved quickly to have her married off in order to protect his image. After she moved away, friends and family noted that he never spoke of her. It was if he had erased her from his memory. A man who was more concerned about his public image than his daughter's welfare could be capable of killing to preserve that reputation. But he also could have remained quiet in hopes that the community would forget about the perceived shame of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy in his family. He had died six years ago of natural causes.

So who had killed Elizabeth – the father or the husband? Ruth was convinced that it was the husband, but Danny wasn't so sure. The father's actions just rubbed him the wrong way.

Steve leaned against his cubicle, with a mug of coffee in his hand. "How goes it, Danno?"

Danny sighed in frustration. "Nowhere. I have chased down every possible angle I could think of and all the evidence points to the same two suspects. And I'm afraid that they took the truth with them to the grave."

Steve sat down on the edge of Danny's desk. "I was wondering how long it would take you to come to that conclusion."

Already suspecting the direction this conversation was headed, Danny cut straight to the point. "Steve, I have seen you solve cases that others said were unsolvable. I have chased down leads on your instructions that I thought were flimsy and worthless and watched them crack cases wide open. So why are you so adamant about not giving the same attention to this case?"

"Experience and many years of trusting my gut, Danno. It may not look like it, but I want to close this case as much as you do. Everyone deserves justice. But this time it looks like we are going to have to leave the justice to God."

Danny bit his lip. He didn't share Steve's faith. It wasn't that he didn't believe in God, it was that ever since his mother's death, he wasn't so sure that God was as good or as just as people said.

"You gave these bones flesh and you made them speak," Steve said gently. "But they've told us as much as they could tell. Part of this job is learning to recognize when we've done all we can."

"It just feels like I've failed her."

"You discovered and identified her body. Her family and friends know that she was murdered. And you've brought a measure of peace to a grieving mother. In time you will learn to take comfort in that."

Steve rose to leave, but Danny called out, "Do they ever stop haunting you?"

"No, Danno. They don't."

Left alone at his desk, Danny looked at Elizabeth's picture. He had to let her go. He had told her story and the story of her unborn child as best as he could. Now he had to hope that it would be enough for her to rest in peace.

Gathering up the scattered papers, he organized them neatly in the file. And then, with a heavy heart, Danny closed the file and asked May to return it to the archives.

No matter how hard they tried, some cases weren't possible to close.

PAU


End file.
